What do you use to cover the emitter board?

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Opening up a light, I found it to just be a piece of thin cardboard between the emitter and the reflector. Should I just be replacing this with more cardboard? A small piece of kapton tape? A chopped up chunk of soda-bottle-cap liner?

Random dissectors need to know, people! :P

Edit: Isolation disk. Learned a new term.

2

You're only limited by your imagination....As long as it's a good insulator with some semblence of structural integrity, you should be fine.

I've used plastic water bottle caps, cardstock, black electricians tape, and arctic silver thermal epoxy before... Also, don't forget the good old fashioned air-gap :)

3

Actually, looking at them, my first thought was "hey, that looks like the insert under a soda bottle cap". Quickly followed by "crap, it can't be that easy. what do you want to bet it will melt?"

Thus the trip here, to the great font of knowledge.

Thanks Match!

4

If you have some Fujik put a dab over the solder points of the emitter before you stick your isolation disk on for added security against a short with the reflector.

5

Thanks E1320. It's on the way, but like everything else, held up by the postal strike.

I'm going to go experiment with a bit of plastic and a 3-hole punch.

6

I've used a transparency foil (for overhead projectors), thick paper, even normal paper - it depends on how much space I want for a good adjustment.

7

I made same question some days ago. I would try with a thin foil fo teflon.

8

I even used an oring to press the emitter board to the pill (usefull when the glue cures) and fill the gap before the reflector shortens the circuit. Also makes a nice thing to fine tune the reflector distance and alignement to the emitter when tweaking to the maximum (very important for throwers, the better the job the better the thorw).

9

Oh, crud. I guess I didn't look hard enough. Can you drop in a link to the original thread?

And thanks for the tip. The only handy source of teflon I can get my hands on is plumbers tape, sadly.

10

I've often used the ring reinforcements used to reinforce the punch holes in punched paper. They cost approximately nothing for a few hundred of them.